According to one conventional inspection method for judging whether a semiconductor chip has a defect or not, a pattern matching method is available in which a master pattern obtained from a good-quality product is compared with an image pattern obtained from the outer surface of the semiconductor chip as an object to be inspected (For example, see Patent Literature 1).
According to this method, the comparison of both the patterns makes it possible that a defect liable to cause insufficiently electric contact, such as dust attached to the semiconductor chip or scratch of bump or the like, can be detected by image data processing, so that whether the semiconductor is good or not can be effectively judged.
Patent Literature 1: JP-A 2002-109515 (Pages 3 and 4, FIG. 2)